Red IS a Neutral

Blogiversary post 2 of 10

In the Fall of 2016, Barb Vedder hosted a block swap: broken dishes blocks made with solids- any red plus one other color. 

I chose to use a pale yellow and pale blue for my blocks.

Barb mixed them up and returned an assorted pile of blocks to us.

I pieced my top on November 1, 2016 and started quilting on the 3rd.

I had just taken a Craftsy class with Christina Camelli, so I had a blast quilting in red thread. It is the neutral in this quilt, after all!

Do you see the star shaped area below with less quilting? That was a design choice that quilt judges don't like. I did it anyway!

The binding was stitched on November 5th!

The purple binding was the best choice and it looks good with the Jane Sassaman print on the back.

 Freddy Moran says every color looks better next to red!

Red IS a Neutral

32" X 32"

Started 9/21/16

Finished 11/5/16

Best Use of Color, Ninigret Quilters 2017

Citrus Swap

It's a new year and I'm full of motivation! Don't you love new year mojo?

I'm going to try to get back to blogging about my finished projects. Ive been spending a lot of time posting about process on Instagram, but I miss blogging about the finish! She here goes. Let's try to get caught up.

I'm calling this quilt Citrus, but the colors remind me of Fruit Stripe gum, too. The blocks were made during several rounds of 4X5 block swaps in 2011. The blocks had been in a project box for years, waiting for setting inspiration to strike. I wanted it to have a modern feel. I saw a similar setting on Instagram one day and immediately got to work.

Once I had a plan, the top went together quickly. Then I went a little overboard with the domestic machine quilting. It was good practice to custom quilt each block.

I went overboard when it came to quilting the setting columns. I did a lot of work in those green parts that got completely lost in the print. Below, you can see a split screen of front and back, so you can see what I did. Well, it was good practice!

Citrus

62" X 74"

Block Swap Started: 2011

Quilt Completed: September 2016

Guild Fun

 It has been kind of a random week of stitching, jumping from one project to another. As I was thinking about what to blog about today, I realized there was a theme to some of the projects: Guilds. 

Narragansett Bay Quilters Association is having a show in April, which means a fabric challenge was issued. Members were able to purchase some of the challenge fabric- Kaffe Fassett's Millefiore dated 2012. I've had that piece of fabric for several months, waiting for inspiration to strike. Early this week, I scoured my Pinterest boards and found this lovely little piece by Bryan House Quilts. Rebecca's wildflowers measure about 7", so my whole piece will be about 22".

I fussy cut the Millefiore and selected some coordinating prints from my stash. Everything is cut and ready for nighttime EPP TV stitching. In three days, I was able to finish three blocks. I'm planning to make nine blocks, and I hope to be quilting this piece next week.

Rhode Island Modern Quilt Guild is on the second round of postcard swapping. Recognize that heart fabric? My swap partner is also a member of NBQA, so I hope she gets a kick out of the guild crossover.

 

 

I recently received a couple of postcards from RIMQG. Leslie sent me the sweet orange lollipop flowers because one of my Christmas postcards got lost in the mail. Thank you, swap angel!

Lisa sent me these cool seaside stitches! Yes, fabric postcards go through the mail, but it seems like they pick up ink/dirt from the postal machines in the same spot. Bummer.

 

 Ninigret Quilters is having a three-month swap of lifesaver blocks. Here's my haul from January. 

I'm going to try to finish something today. Stay tuned!

WIP Wednesday

Yesterday was a soggy, rainy day. I have to force myself to be productive on days like that. I'd much rather spend the day on the couch with my laptop.  

I did manage to get two Wild & Goosey blocks done. That brings me to 20 out of 25 I need for my wall hanging. This riot of color was the perfect antidote for the crummy weather.

Quilting the Farmer's Engineer's Wife is at the top of my priority list. I have to add one more large piece to the back, then it can be basted. I will be trying Sharon Shamber's method of using boards to keep the parts square and flat. I haven't decided yet if I'll thread- or pin-baste.

In the finished column since my last WIP post, I have added another QOV for a cousin 

and a graduation gift for a friend's daughter.

I'm participating in the modern fabric postcard swap on Instagram. These are the 4x6" postcards I will be dropping in the mail later today. It was fun playing with the color and fabric choices of the recipients.

 I printed 4" New York Beauty blocks from EQ7 and added 2" of extra background on one side. I wasn't sure if I could piece such a small curve, but it wasn't too bad. I pinned a lot!

Have a great day!

Friendly Friday Finish

The Friendship Star quilt is done. Most of the blocks were collected in block swaps with two guilds: Ninigret Quilters and RI Modern Quilt Guild. It makes me so happy to have new and old friends represented in one quilt.

The Ninigret swap was a 3-month activity that started in January 2014. At the end of the year, it was my turn to gather blocks in the RIMQG bee. I started assembling the top at the end of this January. The little stars in the sashing were made from 2" squares that had been cut years ago.

I had about half of the quilting done when I ran out of thread! My Superior order arrived Tuesday, so I was able to finish the quilting yesterday. I'm really not a fan of stippling, but it works with this quilt. I like the loops in the star points and that the design in the center square looks like hearts.

The backing was pieced from some stash-busting blues and greens.

 

I love the texture of the quilting on the back.

 

To continue with the scrappy theme, the binding came out of my leftover binding bin. 

I tried to get a glamor shot on the railing with our cool window in the background, but I couldn't get the lighting right.

 

I'll have to design a quilt based on this window someday.

 

Friendship Stars

64" X 85"

Started January 2014

Completed February 2015

Blocks swapped with Ninigret Quilters and RIMQG

Friendship Stars

 My friendship star top came together over the course of Friday night and all day Saturday. I'm really excited about how scrappy it looks. 

The blocks came from swaps in two guilds. Ninigret Quilters swapped blocks last January, February and March which gave me 36 blocks. This January, it was my turn to receive blocks from my RIMQG hive, so I added 10 more blocks to the stash. I made a couple extra for a grand total of 48.

I started a Pinterest board for layout ideas. I liked the idea of creating a secondary design. I played around on EQ7 and the tiny stars in the sashing popped out. The blocks finish at 9", so I cut the sashing strips and corner squares at 2". I think the proportions work well. The top is about 65" X 86".

I pieced together a pile of leftover binding pieces, but I still haven't made a dent in that box-o-binding. It's a good thing I picked up some batting on sale at JoAnn's last week. It looks like we'll be snowed in on Tuesday- a perfect day for quilting, as long as the power stays on.

Scnitzel and Boo Swap- round 3

 Mini quilt swaps are so much fun! This is my second time swapping with schnitzel and boo. This time, it was all based in instagram. I love the concept of #makeaquiltmakeafriend. Since it is a blind swap, you actually get to make two new friends!

Here's the quilt that I'm putting in the mail today. I hope it is vague enough to tell you that my partner likes cotton & steel fabric. It's a good thing I bought a pile of fat quarters of c&s last fall. Since I couldn't figure out her color preference, I used what I had and made it work. The aqua background was a stretch for me. Oh, how I wanted to use some Kona snow!

The block pattern is from a V & Co pattern called Flower Box. I made a 16" block. With the border and after quilting, the mini is 20" square.

I didn't take many process pics. I wanted you to see the backing fabric. I used what I had, even though it doesn't really go with the front. I like spray basting minis, but I'm too cheap to use it on larger quilts. I spray on my kitchen table because it is easy to clean up if I do it right away. I leaned my cutting board against my machine to protect it.

I posted this pic to instagram when I picked out thread. I used the two that blended the best. The soft, shiny pink is Sulky 40 wt rayon. I'll be using more of this pretty thread. The Aurifil 50 wt cotton is #2600 dove grey that is just a bit blue. Just to illustrate that the numbering system for threads is not uniform, the Sulky 40 wt feels thinner than the Aurifil 50 wt, even though higher numbers usually mean thinner thread. The Sulky is way thinner than a YLI 40 wt quilting cotton. The more you know...

I had fun with the filler free motion quilting. In the border, I did some parallel straight lines then went back and quilted the serpentine lines in between. I think it's a cool look for a small border.

Of course, I had to add some goodies including some local chocolate.

 

So that's my second mini finish of 2015. Maybe I should finish something larger!

 

I received the most perfect mini quilt from Tiffany @loisanddot. She admitted to stalking my sites and it totally paid off! She nailed it. I am totally in love with this mini!

She did some cool concentric square straight line quilting around that feature square.

Look at the print on the back! It made me squeal when I unwrapped the package.

 

The extra goodies are as great as the quilt! Matching magnets and tea wallet, some Kate Spain Horizon, and a magnetic needle minder that I put to use immediately! I had never seen those Lindt chocolate sticks before, but now I'm seeing them everywhere.

I'm not sure if it will hang in the hallway gallery...

 

or the kitchen. Hmm. It might look better on the yellow wall.

 Thank you, Tiffany! It's perfect!!